NRS and IRS to merge

The National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) and the Media Research User's Council (MRUC) have decided to merge the National Readership Survey (NRS) and the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) to create a single research for the print industry.

The biannual IRS and the annual NRS, are the two primary readership surveys in the country.

Both organisations have agreed to this proposition, and have passed the relevant resolutions supporting the move.

The new body that would lead this survey would comprise 10 members each from MRUC and NRSC. The merger will result in greater consensus among advertising agencies, top advertisers and print media companies, while planning print media spends on the basis of readership figures.

According to reports, it is believed that Madison World's Sam Balsara and India Today Group's Ashish Bagga would be leading this survey from the NRSC side, while TV Today's G Krishnan and Lokmat Group's Bharat Kapadia would be leading it from the MRUC side.

This move is seen as a positive step in solving the problems that the print industry has been facing on the research front. The new body is expected to work on a state-of-the-art readership survey that would carry forward the research interest for all the various print publications such as newspapers and magazines.